SMWCon Fall2013: Wikidata - an experience report

Markus Glaser and Robert Vogel auf der SMWCon Fall 13:
This talk covers the experience of Hallo Welt! developers and decision makers, gathered in a real world project: Creating a Software Feature Matrix for the BlueForge website. We want to explain the idea behind the project, share the evaluation process and report about pitfalls and problems.
http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2013/BlueForge_Feature_Matrix:_WikiData_-_An_experience_report

Here the original talk as video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzRItXvzYTM

7.
What tool is best?
Requirements
Specifics of
software features
• there are variants and
forks (e.g. "free" vs.
"professional version")
• there are versions with
new features or different
implementations of the
same feature
• features are not binary,
they differ in quality
1
Feature
comparison
• There are groups /
categories of software
(Schema)
• Features can be added /
evaluated within the wiki
/ wikidata via UI (API)
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3
4
State of knowledge
5
Claims (Wikidata) vs.
propositions (SMW)
The vendor says this
feature is well
implemented 
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8.
Wikidata
Decision was made for the Wikimedia tool
Arguments for Wikidata:
•
•
•
•
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2
Propositions can be qualified
Interaction is API-based
There is already a UI for entering data
...
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4
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14.
showcase
There are two systems
stage.blueforge.biz
stage-data.blueforge.biz
(MediaWiki + BlueSpice,
role "client")
(MediaWiki + Wikibase,
role "repo")
http://stage.blueforge.biz/wiki/
Special:Version
http://data-stage.blueforge.biz/index.php/
Special:Version
"stage-data" is currently used as
a backend, user interaction only
on "stage"
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15.
Implementation experience
Data model can be implemented in Wikidata. Philosopy seems to overlap
Architecture seems to be flexible enough
Officially not ready for 3rd party use: we are very early adopters :)
Schema via UI / tool support
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16.
Implementation experience
Hard to set up, we tried using vagrant but ended with a custom/hacked
setup.
PHP dependency: do not use <= 5.3.2:Caution, this one is used on
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Custom value types were hard to implement
Value autocomplete seems to be resource intensive without additional
data stores
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17.
Wrap-up
• Wikidata has great potential as a foundation for
custom developments
• Most troubles we had where because of the very
early version we used
• Some concepts of Wikidata ("snaks") are hard to
understand in the first place
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18.
Wrap-up
• Development of FeatureMatrix will continue on base
of Wikidata. But we consider developing the frontend
first and ...
• ... updating the backend when Wikidata and it's API is
more stable.
• Are there any other 3rd party users of Wikidata?
Are Wikidata people interested in exchange of ideas /
code?
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